Rema’s global smash-hit, Calm Down has etched its name in the history records as the first African song to accumulate over a billion streams on Spotify. The version featuring Selena Gomez was released more than a year ago in August 2022 and since then has done unprecedented feats in pushing Afrobeats to a more global audience in the past year. Especially in the United States, where it’s the most successful crossover Afrobeats song and has demolished other records set by previous trailblazers.
This feat has invariably placed Rema as a major frontrunner in the bid and movement of establishing Afrobeats on the global stage. The Benin-born superstar who calls his brand of Afrobeats, ‘Afro-Rave is already the 3rd most streamed African artist on Spotify and for someone who has spent only 4 years on the scene, it’s even more impressive.
Rema is not the only African star to benefit from a cross-cultural music collaboration. Fireboy DML also reaped similar benefits with ‘Peru ft. Ed Sheeran, as the song went on to become the biggest Afrobeats song in the UK. Alongside Wizkid’s Essence ft. Justin Bieber that preceded it—which was the first Afrobeats song to feature on the Billboard Hot 100—these successful cross-cultural experimentations have proved time and time again that music is a universal language, and language barriers are merely trifle things that can be overcome when the music is that good and resonant.
“It’s a blessing. It’s not just a big win for me, my team and family, it’s also a big one for the culture. I feel really happy and I’m really proud of the fans as well for going back to the song and putting people on the song. Shout out to the DJs and everyone who made this possible,” said Rema when he heard the news from Spotify.
There is no clear metric in which one could use to nail down the success of Calm Down, but it’s not really much of a mystifying puzzle as to how it’s that succesful. The song is saddled with very infectious melodies and catchy one-liners, that were carefully constructed to grow on you with subsequent listens. The song has the soul of some of the best emotive records, and still retains it African element of being groovy and upbeat. It’s no wonder that it’s an extremely Playlist friendly song, with data showing that it’s been added to over a million playlists.
Calm Down’s success has been pivotal to Rema’s exploits on the global stage, particularly feats that have him selling out arenas in India and receiving a large proportion of streams from other major music markets asides the USA, like Mexico, Brazil and the UK.
“It’s a blessing. It’s not just a big win for me, my team and family, it’s also a big one for the culture. I feel really happy and I’m really proud of the fans as well for going back to the song and putting people on the song. Shout out to the DJs and everyone who made this possible,” said Rema when he heard the news from Spotify.
The significance of Calm Down is far reaching for Afrobeats and not just for the artist in particular. It is tangible evidence that music has the power to breach cultural differences and build bridges, a status other mediums of art are yet to clinch.
And amongst the new generation of popstars, Rema has proven himself amongst a select few to be the new guard of artists ready to set the world ablaze.